Josh asks: How DARE you
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Blondie, 11/23/25
Two very important details here. One, Dagwood has his handkerchief out and at the ready when he knocks on Herb’s door. He’s already on the verge of tears and knows he won’t be able to hold back once this conversation starts — the conversation that he thinks will be among the last with his best friend while they’re still neighbors, before they inevitably begin to drift apart. The second is that Herb clearly put Tootsie up to relay the strategically redacted information about his career prospects to Blondie precisely in order to set up this scenario, and to exploit his friend’s soft heart. Never have I felt more tenderly towards Dagwood, or more harshly towards Herb!
Mary Worth, 11/23/25
Oh no! Toby’s beloved friend Sunny had a backstory, and that backstory is that he was illegally trafficked into California! I guess Toby and Sunny are about to go on an Incredible Journey-style journey to find Sunny’s real home, in the compound of the Mexican parrot smuggling gang where he was born. Will they still accept him, now that he laughs like Ross from Friends all the time?
Mother Goose and Grimm, 11/23/25
On one level of conceptual reality, R2-D2 is a droid living a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, and on another level R2-D2 is Kenny Baker and a series of other actors inside a mechanical prop in various movies and TV shows put out by Lucasfilm. Or, in Mother Goose and Grimm, R2-D2 is an actor who had a movie career, presumably playing R2-D2 the character in the Star Wars movies? I don’t find this mix of narrative planes very coherent, to be quite honest, and I don’t think it’s funny to make R2-D2 into a coffee machine either. He helped blow up the Death Star! Show some respect.
56 replies to “Josh asks: How DARE you”
Mary Worth Mashup: With newly-added final panels!
Snuffy Smith Mashups: Am I supposed to know who that homunculus is in the final panel? How about a few more recognizable turkeys?
MW:
“Er…no thanks, dear! I yam not hungry right this instant.”
Wary Morth:
“So Sunny is an illegal immigrant. I’m calling ICE. Say bye to your baby, Toby. Ha ha ha!”
_________________________________
Wrecks Moregone:
Hello, As Much Boredom As The Readers Are Saddled With!
MW:
Alfred E. Neuman said what Narendra Modi said — but a lot more succinctly — when he intoned: “What? Me worry?”
Wary Morth 2:
Mockers and Mockerettes, *at last* we have the magic ingredient to ward off the Mary! Sweet potato, the holy water to the meddlevampire!
@Bob Tice:
As an Indian I’m pretty sure Modi, whose entire regime is based on falsifying the past, never said such a thing.
(Sorry for the political outburst.)
@Baja Gaijin:
Mary Worth: your link gives me this:
about:blank#blocked
Barney Smif: Weelburman, of course.
MW-Way to be a buzzkill, Mary. Toby lost her husband to an education conference don’t make her lose Sunny too.
Slylock Fox-Slylock has the neighbors reporting and spying on each other.
FC-Here is a picture of Grandma at Woodstock.
FC-Here’s a picture of Grandma burning her bra. You’ll notice that it’s a small fire.
Mary was like “I need to mix spiritual banalities and modern cliches to make my brutal reactionary and heteronormative views I impose on others more acceptable” and she found a kindred spirit not in the usual white bore, but in a leader of the Global South and non-Christian religion, Modi! Diversity wins!
MW: Mary makes that face because Toby’s potato steamer was manufactured in Cleveland. ::URP!::
@Liam: Stasi Fox
“Mother Goose and Grimm” was like “Starbucks baristas are cool and nice, but what if the hot beverages they served us CAME OUT OF THEIR BODIES”
@Anonymous: that’s me
Blondie: I’m not one to use a hanky, but are the usually that big? Dag can cover his whole face with lots of fabric to spare. I suppose when you consume that amount of mustard and pickles daily you produce a lot of phlegm.
MW: Interesting choice of quote in the throwaway panel. I’m assuming this is about Toby not carrying the burden of the past (i.e. the horrible conditions her bird escaped from) or worrying about the madness of the future (Ian absolutely losing it when he comes back to an apartment strewn with sunflower shells and bird shit)
MMG: Imagine someone offered you a job to piss in people’s coffee every day. It’d probably be funny for a few days, then it would just get old. Poor Artoo…
Blondie: The artist has gone to a lot of trouble today, three panels worth, to point out that Herb hangs left. I’m Not sure how Herb going commando adds to the story.
MW:
[Narrator on TV]: “All nontrivial zeros of the zeta function lie on a specific vertical line in the complex plane!”
[Guy on TV]: “Ha ha ha!”
[Sunny]: “Ha ha ha!”
[Toby]: “Oh, those two wags! — poking fun at the Riemann hypothesis again!”
@ 7 Ukranazi Stepan: Thanks. Let me try again.
Mary Worth Mashups: With Changed Final Panels and a working link!
Mary Worth: Sunny is laughing because he caused the truck crash to get rid of his fellow parrots, who were squealing to the American authorities. And now he knows he’s gotten away with it. “Ha-ha-ha, my comrades from Tren de Agua will soon come and bring me back home, and I’m afraid the ladies who helped me will be collateral damage. But thanks for the muffins, suckers!”
Mother Goose and Grimm: The clankers are taking our jobs! (Is what comic writers and artists are saying, as their syndicates increasingly look to AI platforms as a cheaper way of creating a couple squares of drawings and a half-funny punchline every day.)
Mark Trail: Gosh, Mark, you’re a little late with the lesson on pumpkins. Sure, you want to be all positive and talk about the upcoming holiday when they’ll be made into delicious pies — but just three weeks ago they were horrid grinning abominations with candles in their skulls. Yin and yang, light and dark, good and evil — that’s what nature is all about, Mark Trail!
MW: Just when investors wondered if it would survive, the Ha-Ha streaming network finds its target audience.
Blondie:
“I’d like to run him over with that lawn mower and then have a leisurely lunch on his writhing torso. No. Don’t say it, self. Yep. ‘Dejeuner sur Herb.’ “
MW: Shouldn’t the vet have gotten a BOLO for hot parrots? Seems like something vets would know about.
H&L: Again, I call B.S. on this strip. If kids aren’t yelling, “M-o-o-o-o-m!” every five minutes, it’s because they’re building a bomb in the basement.
BLONDIE: Since when does Herb have a conscience? He usually just brazenly admits that he’s stolen/destroyed Dagwood’s stuff.
“I will not accept any happiness in this condo community unless I am directly the cause and intimately involved. Expect to see ICE here soon, Toby, to haul your precious illegal immigrant parrot off in handcuffs….er…clawcuffs….oh, you know what I mean.”
Mother Goose and Grimm:
In the meantime, his Star Wars robot companion turned to television and garnered the leading role in a reprise of the 1976-78 Don Rickles naval comedy, a sequel called C-3PO Sharkey.
MG&G: If that coffee spout was about six inches lower, the tragedy wouldn’t be that former movie star R2D2 turned to retail, it would be that he turned to sex work.
MG&G: If that coffee spout was about six inches lower, the tragedy wouldn’t be that former movie star R2D2 turned to retail, it would be that he turned to sex work.
FC: Grandma can’t even perform the sacred act of Seppuku in private without these brats interrupting.
RMMD: Augie agonizes for weeks over whether to publish and lose Summer or not publish and lose the money. After their monthlong break, he finally sees Summer who has binge eaten her way up three dress sizes. “Well,” he says. “Sometimes these problems take care of themselves.”
Blondie’s first panel seemed to show Dagwood trying to score some weed, but it turned out to be much less interesting.
Blondie: “My best friend is leaving!” As he’s your only friend, you’re technically correct.
H&L: Who says a legacy strip can’t be up to date? Hi’s grape-juice-in-a-wine-glass is the latest trend in $15 mocktails.
MW: Mary’s turning up her nose at steamed sweet potatos? With what she serves to her guests?
@Ukranazi Stepan: No, this quote is confirmed. Modi said it in an interview with Amol Sharma in the Wall Street Journal in 2012, which is reprinted in some books that are too gross to link. He was dodging a question about whether he would run for prime minister.
Anyway, joins John C. Calhoun and Robert E. Lee in the Sunday Mary Worth quote anti-pantheon, and I’m not sure it’s better that this one is accurate.
that is, accurately attributed
@Hibbleton: Why did you notice that. Why did I confirm that. Truly, we live in a hell of our own making.
Possibly my favorite “hot take” or alternative view is the idea that R2– not Luke– is the true hero of Star Wars. (At least the first film; it gets harder to justify as the series goes on.)
Basically– and I’m actually mostly serious here– more of the major plot events are moved along in a positive fashion by the plucky astromech, not the farm boy. Leia trusts R2 with the plans. R2 cons Luke into removing the restraining bolt and then sets the off alone (at night) to find Obi-Wan.
And so on. Luke’s the protagonist– or at least a protagonist– and fires the 1 in a million shot to destroy the Death Star (and there’s that Hero’s Journey business)– but R2 is IMO more important, plotwise.
(I mention this whenever I get the opportunity because I never actually see it “in the wild” so it’s possible that I actually came up with it instead of reading it somewhere and latching on to it.)
The MGaG comic also reminds me of the “joke” that Luke may’ve been the hero and Han the sidekick, but Harrison Ford had a better agent than Mark Hammill.
Sunday is here and so is JUNGLE JIM!
It sure makes your feet hurt burying three people.
@Hibbleton: They’re just singing along to Chief Keef’s “Laughin’ to the Bank,” which Mary plays on loop.
Well, Mary will be of some use consoling Toby when they Euthanize Sunny to prevent the spread of bird flu
MG&G: Stephen Colbert does that joke better in his “Cyborgasm” segment.
Please stay for lunch, Mary. I just bought a huge bag of quality pellets.
Blondie: In Panel One, Dagwood channels his inner Sheldon.
Y’know, Dag — that handkerchief can also be used to wipe off fingerprints from around someone’s throat. Just sayin’.
MARRIED WURST: Modi wrote the first draft of the Hallmark platitude “the past is history, the future’s a mystery, this day is the best day; that’s why it’s called the present’.” I’m actually a bit surprised Moy didn’t use Hallmark’s version.
Blondie – I wonder if Herb thought that Sheldon Cooper was at the door.
@Charles Solution: Now I’m gonna have to go rewatch Kurosawa’s “The Hidden Fortress” to see if the short Samurai was the real hero of that movie.
KRANKSHAT: The final panel, in which Ed asks Pmm “What was that?” and she answers “Nothing” might just be the most perfect summary of Batiuk’s career ever written.
H&L I want to know which Bizarro-world flavour Hi and Lois live in – one where there are “double feature” operas or classical concerts, or where people dress up more to catch a movie than they would for Easter church.
RMMD speaking of Bizarro worlds, I’m not sure what’s more out of touch – the Worthiverse’s “local advice columnist can afford a California condo *and* take months-long vacations” or the Morganverse’s “one mystery manuscript = riches beyond your wildest dreams”. There isn’t that much money until or unless you’re the next Tom Clancy!
Here’s a picture of Grandma pulling a train.
@Ukranazi Stepan: That may be, but I think it’s just “anything that Toby cooks.” I mean, Ian subsists on frozen fish sticks so much that he has become the Gorton’s Fisherman – you are what you eat!
Mary Worth: Sonny has spent the last two weeks trying to keep Toby from seeing the major-for-Santa Royale story about the exotic wildlife on the loose in the news. Hence the steady diet of sitcoms and soap operas. If he stops laughing, the game is up.
@Ukranazi Stepan: That’s a quote that says “History?!?! I don’t need no steenkin’ History!”
Dr. Ed will be thrilled. “Parrot” has been the holy grail he’s been seeking to complete his bingo card.
“Dagwood, the Thanksgiving turkey tastes . . . well, gamey this year. Did you change something?”
“I stuffed it with chopped Herb.”
MW: Mary Worth, casually chatting with her neighbour, a pleasant smile on her lips, not a care in the world: “Most birds died…”
MG&G: I like this glimpse into an alternative universe where Starbucks has a much cleaner, simpler menu. You can have a frothy coffee, a frothy coffee with chocolate, or a frothy coffee with spices. If that’s all too exotic for you, try your luck with a “café”. Who knows what you’ll get!
Blondie – Yeah – like Herb would ever move and loose that sweet back door Blondie action….
MW – The shitty present….
MG&G – Now my coffee tastes like WD-40….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
MG&G: I can see you’re serving drinks, but this place is dangerous!
@Charles Solution: Hero’s journey? You mean like when an unassuming Astromech droid receives a quest from a princess, wanders lost with no one for company but a sanctimonious twit, journeys through the underworld of Jawa droid trafficking, finds the McGuffin (Obi Wan) returns to the princess and then, with his own death-and-resurrection cycle keeps the farm boy alive long enough to make that one in a million shot? And he does it all without so much as a single midichlorian in his oil pan!
MW: Mary has no problem with telepathic dogs, but talking birds make her uncomfortable.